Kindle Fire GiveAway!

by Libby Hellmann






Interested in winning a Kindle Fire? If so, come on over here to find out more. The contest is running now.

Thanks.

Writing Spaces . . . George Foreman . . . Prizes!

by Sean Chercover

I'm insanely jealous of writers who can work on planes and buses, in coffee shops, and so on. I see you people at the neighborhood Caribou Coffee (or Timothy's, in Toronto) and on buses and in airplanes (or, in Laura's case, poolside in Vegas), happily tapping away on your keyboards, oblivious to all the people flapping around clucking at each other, unfazed by the insipid muzak or the squeal of the milk-frother.

I can't do it. I can write in dingy bars, but once in a dingy bar, I start drinking, and my writing goes to hell. I enjoy working in coffee shops with notebook and pen, but for me, longhand is mostly about brainstorming.

When it comes down to writing the actual prose of the book, I have to retreat to my own cave.

And I have a new cave

I recently rented a place above a vacant storefront.

It's walking distance (a mere 6 minutes) from my house.














My office isn't quite set up. Boxes everywhere, some walls still bare, I haven't unpacked my Ernie Banks and Incredible Hulk bobbleheads, and I'm still looking for my Page Points. But my desk area is up and running.

The reason I've not finished unpacking is ... I'm busy writing. The phone doesn't ring 367 times a day, and there's no tug-of-war in my head between family time and work time. When I'm at the office, I'm at work. When I'm home, I'm not at work.

Easy to understand, even for a simple man like me. No confusion. As a result, my productivity (read: word-count) is way, way up.

I also dig the atmosphere.

The stairway features cracked linoleum, peeling paint, and naked lightbulbs. Sets the mood perfectly as I arrive to work.















Across the street, a convenience store and a Chinese take-out joint (bedsheets seem to be very popular window-dressing on this street).














When Agent 99 and I first moved to the neighborhood, we ordered dinner from this place (undoubtedly sold by their claim of "Famous" Chinese Food).

We both got sick.

So I won't be picking up lunch at the joint, but as atmospheric set-dressing, something to gaze upon when I look out my office window, it's perfect.

Oh, and did I mention that my office has a small kitchen?

It does. And that's important, since I'm now renting an office, and do not have money to spend on take-out, famous or otherwise.

The oven and two of the stove-top burners don't work, but two burners is plenty for a guy alone in an office, right?

Besides, my dad gave me an office-warming gift that renders such last-century cooking appliances obsolete.

I am now the very proud owner of the greatest kitchen appliance since the spatula.

Yes, it is a George Foreman Grill. And I love it.

Now, if you've read this far, bless you. This post was sparked by the awesome Writer's Rooms series that the Guardian has been running for some time. Check it out, it's addictive.

And if you'd like to win prizes (yea! prizes!) then take a pic of your own writing space and send it to me (email link on my website). Include a word or two about what makes the space work for you.

I'll collect photos for a couple weeks, then post an assortment here.

Let's share...

Shameless Self Promotion

by Marcus Sakey

Hey folks, I hope you’ll forgive me today’s post, but I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about, well, me. More precisely, about my new book, THE AMATEURS, which will be released a week from tomorrow. It’s the story of four friends in their early thirties who aren’t happy with where they’ve ended up in life, and who undertake a risky plan to try to take everything they think they deserve.

Things do not go smoothly.

In any case, besides begging you to buy an armload of copies, I also wanted to tell you about a couple of things I’m doing to promote the novel.

The first is a contest based on a game in the book called, “Ready, Go,” essentially a question game:

"If you died today, what would you most regret? Ready, go."

I’m hosting a couple weeks of "Ready, Go" for some pretty stellar prize packages, including one worth about $750 in hardcover books, many of them signed. (For a full list, click here.)

Here's how to play:

• Every day I pose a new "Ready, Go" question on Twitter and Facebook
• To enter via Twitter, ReTweet your answer, including the tags @marcussakey and #TheAmateurs
• To enter on Facebook, visit my profile and respond
  
• Enter as often as you like. Respond on both Twitter and Facebook for double points!
• When the contest is over, I'll select three winners at random, so the more days you participate, the better your odds. Simple as that.

As a special bonus for Outfit readers, if you post an answer to the above question in the comments here, that will count as an entry too. Take that, non-Outfitters!

The second thing I wanted to tell you about is my release party in Chicago. It will be on August 6th, from 7 – 10pm, at Sheffield’s (3258 N. Sheffield), one of my favorite bars. Come by and have a drink with me, and bring your friends. The more the merrier.

Finally, my tour schedule is as finalized as it tends to get. Check out the dates here. Hope you’ll come out to see me!

Thanks again for the indulgence, and don’t forget, buying copies of THE AMATEURS has been proven to lower cholesterol, assure conviction of corrupt ex-governors, and protect baby seals.*

* These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. Or anyone else.

Cheers!

-Marcus

Follow me on Twitter or Facebook

The Name Game . . .

by Sean Chercover

The Mouse is two years old. Well, two and change. 27 months, if we must be specific. Most of the time, he calls me Da-da, or Dad. Da-da was fun, but I welcome the transition to Dad.

The surprising change is that, with increasing regularity, The Mouse is now also calling me Sean.

A couple of people have suggested that I correct him. But he is correct. My name is Sean, and he hears other people call me Sean, so why the hell shouldn’t he call me Sean?

I admit I am still slightly startled each time he does it. It’s just a little odd to hear my 2-year-old son calling me by my Christian name.

“Christian name.” You don’t hear that very often, these days.

Anyway, I find it interesting that other grown-ups are uneasy about it. Also interesting to note my own emotional reaction to the different names. When the Mouse calls me Sean, it feels different than when he calls me Dad, which in turn feels different than Da-da.

Do you think about this when naming your characters? Not only how the name feels and what it conveys, but also what nicknames the characters might call each other, and what those nicknames convey about the relationships between the characters.

Like everybody, I keep a few “Baby Name” books near my desk. But sometimes reading a list of names with notations of the “Welsh/Irish/Hebrew/Latvian” origins is not enough.

Occasionally I use names of real people. It’s fun to give a shout-out to people I know and love. Like many writers, I’ve donated character naming rights to be auctioned to raise money for a good cause, and I have a contest on my website, one of the prizes being a character named after the winner.

Then there are the names of characters from other books. Gravedigger Peace from Big City Bad Blood and Trigger City is a tip-of-the-hat to Chester Himes, one of my all-time favorite crime writers. His Grave Digger Jones was a corrupt and brutally violent Harlem cop. The resemblance between Gravedigger Peace and Grave Digger Jones doesn’t go much beyond the fact that they both have a pretty deep wellspring of rage, and they’ve both killed more than a few people, but I love using the name as a nod in his direction . . . and it fits my character who is, in fact, a grave digger.

Ray Dudgeon, my series protagonist, went through many names along the way. His penultimate name was Ray Dunbar. Dunbar Road is the street I grew up on. I didn’t like the name Dunbar, but I liked Ray, and I liked the way it sounded with a surname that started with D. I also like names that have independent meaning as words. Spade, Archer, Hammer, Reacher, Strange, Rain . . . all great names that tell us something about the character. So I started flipping through the letter D, in Webster’s dictionary.

Dudgeon fit my protagonist perfectly, both for its modern meaning and for the archaic meaning, most famously used by William Shakespeare in Macbeth. A few folks have commented that Ray’s name is a bit too clever, but the vast majority of people dig it. And I’ve had email correspondence with a number of real-life Dudgeons as a result, including a real Ray Dudgeon.

A totally unexpected benefit of using an unusual name.

I’d love to hear some of your favorite character names, and your method of naming the characters you create. So have at it.

BONUS: A signed, first-edition of Trigger City goes to the first person who tells us the archaic definition for Dudgeon (as mentioned in the Macbeth reference above).

ALSO: Libby mentioned this in the previous post, but in case you missed it. . . The amazing folks at Bleak House Books are giving away FREE books this holiday season. For real. You only pay for shipping. Check it out.

AND: For those of you who are buying gifts this holiday season, please consider buying and giving books.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

by Marcus Sakey

...might not sell as well.

Despite the lesson we're taught in childhood, people do judge books by their covers--and their titles. And why not? First impressions matter. And where a cover design assumes the reader is holding the book, and can flip it over to read blurbs and a summary, a title has to stand on its own. It has to be memorable and suggestive, with the right balance of poetry and punch (Barry Eisler wrote a great article on the need for resonance of titles, if you're interested). And given that the title is a crucial factor in the decision-making process of bookstore buyers, the right one can mean a sales difference in the tens of thousands of copies.

So what, you ask? Well, my second book is complete. My editor and publisher are excited about it. Folks say they like it better than the first one, which pleases me no end. But the one thing everyone agrees they don't like?

You guessed it.

I trust their instincts. These people are pros, and this is an important decision. So I'm hoping you'll help me make it.

Briefly, the book is a thriller about a guy named Jason Palmer, a discharged soldier who returns from Iraq to find a similar war raging in his South Side neighborhood. Jason is in a downward spiral, thrown out of the only place he ever found a home, and wants to spend the summer drinking too much and chasing girls. But when his brother is murdered and his bar burned, presumably by the gangbangers he spoke out against, Jason is forced to dig into increasingly dangerous secrets, all while protecting his eight-year-old nephew from the men hunting him.

The central issues are corruption, brotherhood, responsibility and redemption. It’s got gang warfare and arson and a love story and a car chase and Roman history. And Tom Waits quotes. Oh, and a scene where an arms dealer sings “Angel of the Morning” while shooting up a gang house.

Originally it was titled ACCELERANT. Then ONLY THE DEAD. Then THE END OF WAR. Then STREETS OF FIRE.

Now, we don’t know what it’s called. So I’m running a contest. It’s a two-part gig:

A) Any ideas? Don't let the fact that you haven't read the book slow you down. After over 100 suggestions, I'm getting burned out. So please, throw anything--anything--my way.

B) There are three titles that seem to be in favor right now, and I want your vote. They are: THE VIOLENCE OF FIRE, CITY OF ASHES, and AT THE CITY'S EDGE

Obviously, Part 1 is the meat of the contest. My favorite suggestion will receive a signed copy of THE BLADE ITSELF. In fact, just for fun, it will be a signed U.K. edition, unavailable on U.S. shores.

Better still, if we actually go with your title (or a variation of it), I’ll thank you in the acknowledgments. Plus, I’ll name a character in my third book after you. Not bad for a few minutes of brainstorming. (I'm also running this contest at my other group blog, Killer Year; I'll pick one winner from the two sites.)

By the way, if you don’t have any title ideas, I’d still love to get your vote on Part 2.

So let’s hear it, folks. What the heck should this rose be named?